International Shipholding Corp (ISH)

screened well. don't know enough about the business but seeing how it plays out.

International Shipholding Corp has been on my watch list for a long time and I'm finally ready to call it up and even added a few RL coins to my call. Tastylunch, a long time favorite CAPS player of mine, did a blog on shippers back in mid-September where I added some notes about International Shipholding.
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=259437&t=01001099994698083105
The bad news about ISH are: They are a shipper. The BDI is erratic. The economy, globally is somewhat better than it was, but by no means hurdling out of recession. And did I mention....they are a shipper.
The good news? I've done okay on shippers if carefully researched. I've looked into quite a few of them and have been in and out of a couple RL. I'm still in Navios (NM) and holding. Adding ISH to my portfolio is pushing my diversification thesis, as I'm a small time investor, but the catalyst for making the plunge is mostly around the Obama plan for Afghanistan. Of course, it's not official yet and ISH has limited ship capacity to take advantage of it, but the concept gives me the confidence that long term ISH is at least ship worthy and the current 5% dividend looks stable.
ISH has minimal ships that need to stay busy at a good rate, but they carry specialized cargo. Book slightly above 1, decent margins, good cash flow, very LOW float. I commented in Tasty's blog that:
"The Jones Act mandated that some govenrment business has to go to US company's. US shippers are a little scarcer and typically don't have the special ships needed for this type of work. The mobilization to Afganistan should last at least a year with the ramp up and then moving things back and forth for who knows how long. They are down revenue in the rail cars, but that was a small percent anyway." They are making constant trips between Hawaii to Kuwait and other Afghanistan dropoffs. With the dividend and positive cash flow, while I don't see tremendous upside potential, I do see some stability on the typhoon beaten high sees in ISH.

Water transportation might not be the most flamboyant sector, but it is essential. ISH is not the biggest cap of the transportation industry. But from all its peers, ISH is among those that least suffered from the global economy crisis.
ISH is in the process of modernizing its fleet and getting ready for the recovery, wherever it happens first.
Year to date, the stock price climbed 20% more than the DOW, more than 183% since its 150 days low, in a steady long uptrend, which might explains why it is pretty heavily shorted.
Nevertheless, it is still undervalued, considering the high dividend growth from the past years, its actual dividend yield, the TTM revenue, and its overall fundamentals, there is room for this stock for another 100% growth.
This stock is certainly not attractive for the day trader!
Insiders and institutions hold more than 90% of the shares, and the sellers often play "hard to get".
There might be a small correction in the short term: do not miss the opportunity!

high insider ownership, dividend

small-cap with strong 5 year ROE& profit margin improvement

ccest compte

undervalued + price resiliency. worth a shot on CAPS.

I missed this ship.

tanker with high dividend and govenments as clients.

A necessity no matter the economy would do even better when it bounce back

The need for shipping will continue through this market downturn so ISH should bring some value.

Member of the "Mini-Cap Monsters."

should go higher in a down market revenue growth looks good

LT debt/equity = .77, price/book = .82, ROE = 21%, profit margin = 16%

As long as imports are hot ISH should turn a profit.

Shipping

Has five divisions, including service vessels and a railway. It is currently trading BELOW the book value of $26!

Company lost some footing with its (NOW discontinued) LASH operation, but its 3-quarter 2007 record (compared to 3 quarters of 2006) is outstanding! Will use income from sales of remaining fleet to retire debt.

Institutional investors include PRICE (T.ROWE) ASSOCIATES INC. and 38 other institutions. Motley Fool devotees know that insider ownership is a plus, ISH has 37 percent insider ownership. Profit margin is good at 12 percent, but company will have to improve its 0.43 percent operating mgn. 80 percent 52-week change, and newly declared dividends make this a winning play for the micro-cap investor.